Its annoying to buy these adapters but I just recently got the Intensity Shuttle and the Apple adapter and after watching a tutorial form youtube to set it up I got it working in 15 minutes and there has been no problems what so ever with it.

I’d almost rather give Black Magic an extra $300 just on principal rather than buy yet another Apple adapter. But I think the Intensity Shuttle offers more bang for the buck for home use with it’s analog outputs. And I don’t need the SDI I/O.

With the Vidiot issue having a workaround - just sync it externally - I don’t see a downside, other than the software being a bit of a PITA.

It seems to be a standard of sorts to NOT include thunderbolt cables with equipment that rely on them. I’ve purchased at least 5 devices that absolutely need thunderbolt cables yet do not come with them. My guess is that as they are costly cables, manufacturers choose not to incur the additional cost of including the cables & leave it up to end users to secure them. I suppose it’s a bit like gasoline; absolutely necessary to run my car but it’s not included.

This is common with broadcast gear in general, I believe. With broadcast gear the cables can be incredibly high end and expensive, and with the expectation being a professional user base, there’s no customer support liability involved like there is with consumer gear (where a customer will likely just return the item to the store if it doesn’t have all the cables they need.) Blackmagic definitely want you to use good cables, but I bet including decent cables in the box prices them out of the competition (which likely also doesn’t include cables.) So my bet is on this being an industry specific thing.

About the Thunderbolt cable non inclusion:
I only have two thunderbolt ports on my machine, which means that my need for cables are saturated when i got two cables. Even if i have 5 units to choose from (that does not have thunderbolt daisichaining) i will not need more than two cables. So why pay for an expensive cable each time i need a new unit?

I’ve had my LZX modules sitting in a box for months since I did not have a display solution, but I finally had a chance to get an Intensity Shuttle! yay!

Anyways, I have not been able to get any image from the VC to show up in Media Express yet. I have been able to successfully get an image from a DSLR to show up in Media Express when the Desktop Video input is set to HDMI; however, when I set the Desktop Video input to Component, I do not get any image from the VC. Right now, I just have the H+V output of VC plugged in to the Colorize input of the VC, so I should just be seeing something…

I just stopped using Media Express. I was having similar problems, and though it was the Blackmagic Shuttle thunderbolt. It seems the issue was the ME after setting up capture through Premier Pro. I have way more control and the quality of capture seems better. Also I am not wasting a ton of time fighting with my system as to why it worked on day and not the next. ME is garbage, I would find another software for capture. I do all of this with a MacBook Pro.

I really wish I could get my BMD device to work in Premiere, but I can never get a picture to display in the capture window even though it works fine for me in Media Express and I can even get Premiere to recognize the Shuttle as the primary audio device, but no dice for video. Any links or tips that I could try?

For OP: When I want to get my VC into Media Express, I have my VC plugged into my Shuttle via component, set my input settings in Black Magic Desktop Video Setup as component, 525i59.94, and then match those settings in the preferences tab in Media Express. It is VERY important that the settings match. Even a difference as small as 525p vs. 525i is enough to break the signal chain. The framrate can be either 29.97 or 59.94 but I prefer 59.94. Hope that helps somewhat.